Prem and Cup could mean double trouble
IT might feel like West Bromwich Albion and the rest of the Championship have only just come through a particularly gruelling fixture schedule, but there’s another one looming over the horizon.
Albion will play eight league matches in February alone, while they also must battle through a clogged-up end to January because of FA Cup commitments.
Should they progress to the fifth round of the competition by beating Premier League West Ham, the Baggies will then kick off March with more rescheduling. Head coach Slaven Bilic acknowledges it’s a fixture list each side in the division must overcome and it hasn’t changed from 12 months ago.
Yet he feels Albion could be in ‘double trouble’ if they continue to progress in the Cup, because of more midweek games that would follow, which would in turn heighten the risk of injury to his players.
“For me and my staff it’s the first year but I presume it was the same. They didn’t expand the number of teams in the league from last season, so it was the same,” Bilic reasoned.
“The FA Cup is the thing that is strange. On one hand you want to progress and it’s good to have that game for the guys who haven’t been playing, or if you want to make a mix. The problem is that game you were supposed to play. You are talking about tough fixtures, it’s really tight and there is no break.
“Now, instead of playing Cardiff on January 25 we have to play them on January 28 when we already have seven or eight games in February.
“Then if we go through against West Ham we are in double trouble. Seriously, what do you do? They are basically forcing you to give up.
“There are so many games and fatigue is a major thing. You can refresh the players but everybody gets a little bit tired. The problem is when fatigue becomes injury.”
Leeds United, the only side to keep pace with Albion this season, dramatically fell out of automatic promotion contention in the second half of last season as the campaign took its toll.
Is Bilic concerned a similar scenario could upset the Baggies or, indeed, the Whites again this term? “I don’t think about them that much but maybe it’s also about the opponent,” he said. “When it gets towards the end of the season opponents are more and more defensive-minded.
“Sometimes it is psychological. When you are close to something it becomes harder.
“Leeds have a top team and a top manager and staff. It’s a big club so they have probably been thinking about those things already.”